I'm pretty new to brewing...probably have about 6 or 7 batches under my belt, and I'm sticking with extract batches with specialty grains for now. I'm hoping to brew my version of Surly Furious IPA next weekend, which is a very hoppy, 99 IBU IPA with a copper hue.

I found two recipes online that intrigue me. One was an all-grain version and the other an extract version. The problem is that some of the extract version hops aren't available at my local homebrew store. So my question is this: Can I take the hops and hop schedule from the all-grain version and use the malt extract/specialty grains schedule from the extract version? The schedule would look like this:

Looks good. Two questions/thoughts on your grains: 1) need to decide which crystal malt to use, I'd probably go with crystal 40 or 60; 2) I've not seen roasted barley in an IPA before, its a small amount but I wouldn't want any roasty flavors.

Thanks for the replies! I'll probably cut out the roasted barley and go with the 60 crystal.

Inhousbrew - I hadn't really looked at Northern Brewer. The last batch I made was the Surly clone from Midwest homebrewing supplies, and they said they worked with Surly on their recipe. It came out close, but not quite there. This time around, I'm just hoping to make a tasty, hoppy IPA, and if it turns out to taste like Furious...awesome. Based on the northern brewer recipe, it looks like the Warrior and Amarillo are definitely appropriate for this brew. Thanks for the link!

Unless you do a partial mash, you are wasting your money with the Golden Promise and the Aromatic, and adding starches to the beer that will cause haze.

Don't be afraid of a partial mash, it is just a controlled steep. Use about 1.3 quarts of water per lb of grain. Heat to 160 F, add grains, and hold temperature about 150 F for 30+ minutes. Drain and rinse grains with 170 F water. You can add the crystal to these grains when mashing; the crystal also has some starches that can be converted by mashing.

An all-extract IPA tends to end up sweeter than you want (high FG). I'd be inclined to replace a pound fo extract with a pound of sugar to help dry it out.

I definitely don't want it to end up too sweet, as has probably been the case with my IPA's I've made with extract. Grain-wise, what would you recommend (specific type, amount) to approximate what I was shooting for in the recipe I posted if I try the partial-mash?

I definitely don't want it to end up too sweet, as has probably been the case with my IPA's I've made with extract. Grain-wise, what would you recommend (specific type, amount) to approximate what I was shooting for in the recipe I posted if I try the partial-mash?

Golden Promise is a good base grain (or really any 2-row). Assuming you get about 70% efficiency in mashing, you will need about 1.4 lbs of grain to replace 1 lb of LME.

Mashing needs to be done between 145 and 160 F. The lower the temperature, the more fermentable the wort (and drier the beer). I am for about 148 to 150 F, and it seems to offset the unfermentable in the LME.

I start my boil with the sugars from the mash, and add my LME at about 15 minutes to go. I like to get the wort back to a boil before adding the finishing hops. Some people recommend adding the LME at flame out.

I partial mash, usually do 5 lbs of grain, so I start with 6.5 quarts of water. The grain absorbs about 1 quart, leaving 5.5 quarts. If you use a similar amount of water to rinse the grains (sparging) you will end up with about 11 to 12 quarts in the boil (3 gallons). Can you handle that amount?

I use 5 gallon paint straining bags to hold my grains. It makes it easy to pull the grains out of the pot and then move them to a pot with the sparge water. Don't be afraid to stir the grain. When finished, leave the bag to drain into a container, and add that liquid to the boil later.

I'm not familiar with that yeast. I just looked it up and it's attenuation is about 75%. I think I'd add in a half to a pound (no more) of simple sugar to help dry it out. I think IPAs need to be decently dry. It's your beer.

Yeah I could handle that amount in my kettle. I'll talk to my buddy and see how he feels about a partial mash. If we were to stick with all extract, you mentioned swapping out a pound a pound of extract with a pound of sugar. So if that's true, I'd want to use about 5.5 lbs of LME, and then add about a pound of sugar with 15 minutes left in the boil, right?

I've now had it in the primary for one week and was planning on going two (if the FG reading was on target). When I transferred to the secondary, I was planning on just dry hopping right then for 7 days before bottling. But the instructions say to wait for a while in secondary before dry hopping.

What are the benefits of leaving it in the secondary for 1/2 weeks before dry hopping, as opposed to dry hopping right away in secondary after 2 weeks in the primary?